Restless Nights
by reverseSpectrum
Summary: A civilian mare dies in the bombing of Manehattan, yet wakes up centuries later without the slightest idea of who or where she is. With no memories of her own identity and nary a noteworthy skill of survival, will this simple pony survive in the Equestrian wasteland?
1. The Dreamer

_**A deep slumber with no rest, a reality that's not felt.**_

* * *

It was such a nice day, despite everything. She wouldn't ever forget it. The skies above Manehattan were as clear and sunny as could be, an ever so vibrant blue that just made one want to take advantage of it, to go out there and do something out in the open. The grass was of such a lively green that it evoked a feeling of freshness in the air. Perfectly trimmed and maintained trees worked in tandem with these other factors to form a picturesque image that did wonders for morale. Just walking through that square could make a pony want to puff their chest out, and go do useful things to protect it all.

She couldn't help but write that down as the result of propaganda and pro-war weathering rather than any kind of natural beauty worth being inspired by. No, the peacock blue unicorn carried with her an air of skepticism as she calmly paced through one of the many squares of the city. There was no sign forbidding her from walking on the grass, but she followed the pavement like everything else was lava. Her slate grey mane dragged alongside her hooves as she walked, loose and straight, constantly reminding her that she needed a haircut, with urgency. It fell towards one side only too, acting as a curtain to shield her from a whole half of what her line of sight would've been.

That was likely the reason she didn't see the black outline of something that seemed to blot out the sun for a moment. Her ears however, caught wind of the noise, a whistling not unlike that of a large object moving through the air at considerable speed. She looked up, and saw nothing strange. Then she inhaled, and blew her mane out of the way of her eyes, and finally spotted it. There was no need to compare the object to anything she'd seen before, because she knew what it was.

There was little to do other than sit her flank down on the cold pavement, and mutter a prayer or two, but this mare had never been the kind to believe in those things. Celestia could not protect her, and Luna could not defend her. Besides, asking the empty air seemed unlikely to help her. She'd lived a decent life as a cynical pony. She figured she might as well die a cynical pony. Thus, she shook her head to move her mane out of her face again, and looked up to the falling object, which had already gone through half of its admittedly short trajectory in the second or two it took the unicorn to come to terms with her imminent finality.

The bomb fell, and as the entire city was consumed by a seemingly infinite emerald brightness, that one cynical pony just sighed. She could hear the screams; she could feel the horror… No wait. That was just the burning sensation of everything around her being on the verge of destruction. Barely did she understand the functionality of the magical explosion that was taking place, but she was pretty sure that they were ever so thoroughly screwed, judging by the way the buildings in front of her started to, quite literally, disintegrate before her eyes.

She closed her eyes just as her entire world faded into oblivion.

* * *

When she opened them, she was still whole; still the same. And yet, she was another mare, somehow. Her body felt familiar, yet alien; comfortable, yet unwieldy; healthy, yet weak. She was not where she was when her eyes had come to a close, what felt like seconds ago. As the unicorn inspected her surroundings, she found herself in a large, circular room. The floor, wall, and ceilings were all made of what appeared to be large stone bricks for the most part. She was lying on a large circle in the very center of the area, consisting of many circles layered together. Rings, actually, since they seemed mobile. Every bit of the specific spot she was on appeared to be intricately carved and designed. Like unnecessarily complex ancient architecture. Perhaps it was some sort of ritualistic medium through which spells could be channeled? Nevertheless, her attention shifted to the rest of the place. It was immediately drawn to the more colorful things in the room: Other ponies.

The mare would've asked them so many questions, had they been alive. At first she thought them to be merely asleep, but the odd positions made her quickly discard that theory. She swallowed a knot that had formed in her throat, and walked over to one of them. The dead stallion wore a simple black robe, and looked like he'd been through strenuous pain during his last moments, judging by the shadow of an expression on his ace. The horn on his head seemed singed, as if someone had put a blowtorch to it. The mare couldn't fathom whatever might've happened to him.

A quick inspection led her to the conclusion that all of these male unicorns shared both the cause and time of death. During such a process, she thought about other things too. For example, who was she? She was, obviously, the mare in her dream. But who was that mare? She was her, evidently. This line of thought soon curved into a circle though, which soon complicated itself into a downwards spiral into panic. She didn't know who she was. Why was she there, who had these ponies been? Where was she? Another look around brought her attention back to one of the less alive ponies in the room. As she approached him, she noticed a considerable difference between this one and the rest of the corpses, which made her examine them once more.

Most of them shared the getup of robes and satchels, but this one was clad in black, leather barding, with a Kevlar vest on top, not unlike those worn by the police when they replaced the royal guards. It didn't match his clothes at all, though, and there was neither a plaque nor a uniform to be seen. With some guilt, she pushed the corpse over, and searched his pockets for any sort of identification.

A few minutes later, and the guilt had faded away, to be replaced with curiosity, and confusion. The nameless mare sat on her flank, in front of the carefully arranged belongings of the definitely-not-a-real-police-officer pony. She had a pile of… Sparklecola caps, the common ones too, not any kind of special caps. It was as if the stallion had had some strange obsession with bottle caps, because she counted at least a hundred there. They'd been contained in a leather pouch that had been strapped to a belt on his barding. Next to the pile, she'd placed a standard-issue 9mm that looked very policey, but really wasn't. It was in a state of disrepair that she didn't appreciate. Two spare clips lay next to it.

Next was a nasty looking knife with a jagged blade. Something about it didn't feel right, so she just avoided touching it. The rest was simple, yet bizarre. Some strips of raw flesh, salted and held together in leather bindings, a lighter and cigarettes, and what appeared to be a faded pornographic magazine that had seen better days. This was so unprofessional.

Turning away in some disgust, the mare found herself facing the only source of light: A torch put in a holder on the wall, next to the only connection the room had to the rest of the structure. A long hallway that grew too dark to see before it reached its end, a fact that intimidated her slightly. She'd just woken up to a bunch of dead ponies; nobody had showed up to check on them; the place was very creepy, and she was very tired. Perhaps continuing to explore could wait…

She needed to think. Maybe if she took some time to rest, she'd remember something… About herself, that is. She did remember things. Manehattan, her house, her neighbor, the war…

The war! The bomb, the explosion! Images of her dream shot through her mind in quick succession as she recalled part of it. She'd died! Why was she here, she couldn't have survived such an explosion. Where was she? Little, if any of Manehattan could've withstood those levels of destruction. There were too many questions and absolutely no answers that she could immediately discern.

Conflicted, the mare took the lighter from the dead pseudopolicepony, and muttered an apology to the corpse before making her way over to a corner. She picked the darkest one, where she crouched and put herself to rest under a table covered in books. This way, if someone came in, they wouldn't see her. She had little to no idea of what was going on, and she didn't want to end like those unicorns.

With a sigh, the nameless dreamer closed her eyes, and drifted off to have the exact same dream again.

* * *

 **A new game has been started.**

 **Character:** ?

 **Species:** Unicorn

 **SPECIAL:**

· Strength: 4

· Perception: 8

· Endurance: 5

· Charisma: 4

· Intelligence: 8

· Agility: 6

· Luck: 5

 **New Perk:** _A Dream of Change_ (You were about to lose your future when, instead, you had your past taken away from you. You cannot fit in with the crowd, and there is something eerie in your presence.)

* * *

 **A/N:** Please be gentle. It's the first time I share my writing.


	2. And so it begins

Nobody had come.

She'd been awake for hours now, not yet daring to leave her safe spot underneath the table as she waited for someone, anyone to come check on the dead ponies. Surely, someone had to have known that they'd been here, doing… whatever it was that they had been doing before it backfired horribly. At this point though, the mare was starting to get the idea that if anybody did know, they were either very slow ponies, or just didn't care.

The dreamer crawled out from under the table, and rose to her hooves, taking a moment to dust herself off with a sigh. Despite what felt like a whole night's worth of sleep, she didn't feel rested. She felt just as tired as she had been when she first woke up in such an odd place. It was during that moment of hoofing dust off of her coat that her eyes fell upon her flank, or rather, the mark upon it.

Of course! That'd give her an idea of who she was, right? Right…? Her gaze lingered on her mark: A puzzle piece, with four slots and no tabs. Well, that didn't help. Perhaps she was some kind of professional puzzle solver. At least, from the looks of things, she would be entertained for some time as she tried to figure out what was going on.

The mare walked over to the corpses again, letting out another sigh on her way to that strange circle on the floor. She felt weak, her breath felt heavy, and the air felt colder than it'd been before sleeping. Her eyes fell upon one of the limp forms on the floor, but she moved her gaze elsewhere immediately. It wasn't _that_ cold. Deciding it was time to explore beyond the hallway; the dreamer walked over to the exit, and stopped just in front of it, throwing a worried glance into the darkness. She swallowed as she focused on the torch in the sconce besides her, using her telekinesis to pick it up and take it with her.

The hallway was long, dark, and her steps appeared to echo throughout the entire structure, hooves clacking against the stone beneath. The sounds were soothing, for some reason, although it might've just been the overly quiet atmosphere around her. She walked for what felt like minutes before the hallway reached an abrupt end, and opened into an atrium with the same architectural characteristics she'd been surrounded by so far.

It was dark, eerily quiet, and creepy. Her torch provided the only source of light in the place, but it allowed her to see another sconce besides her, in a similar position to the one she'd gotten her torch from, and holding an extinct torch. Holding her own against it, the mare lit it up, and wandered deeper into the atrium. There was no furniture or décor to be seen, the section was completely empty save for several large, sturdy looking columns, and something of indiscernible form on one end the rectangular expanse.

She walked in the direction of that shadowed figure. She was afraid, but her curiosity far exceeded the fear she felt. When she reached the end of the atrium, the dreamer found there a statue. Lumbering over her and occupying the entire wall, with hooves on the ground and horn grazing the ceiling, thereby stood a rather impressive statue of Celestia. The attention to detail in its craft had been extreme. The little pony before the Alicorn couldn't help but marvel at just how exquisite a piece it was. Yet, that admiration was overshadowed by a sense of anxiety that was caused by the same object. The statue was indeed magnificent, but it had clearly seen better days. It had to be very old, judging by some moss that had started to spread over its hooves, some cracks that were here and there, and the fact that the stone itself seemed faded, somehow.

She was sure that in other conditions, the statue would've beautifully represented an idol worthy of worship, but now, as she looked up to it, she found it scary. The Alicorn of the Sun and daylight, lumbering over her in such a dark and gothic place, hidden away from the Sun in a veiled atrium, made her feel as if someone had put it there to fulfill a purpose other than religious. It rubbed her the wrong way, so the mare paced away from the statue. The next few minutes, she spent walking along the walls of the atrium, lighting the rest of the torches one by one. By the time she was done, the place was decently illuminated, but Celestia didn't look any less disturbing.

More details could be seen in the light now, and she frowned when she saw the solemn expression the statue had. It didn't befit what she did remember. The thought made her think further about her memories. Did she remember seeing Celestia? Not… really. But she did recall the concept of her, and she had expectations for the statue to meet, not to mention the figure had been easily recognized. The line of thought didn't last, as it wasn't long before that odd statue, and the atmosphere, which hadn't gotten any better with the crackling of the torches, made her want to leave.

It was time to leave this place, to go outside and look for ponies that could tell her things. Good ones, preferably. As she walked across the atrium again, the dreamer couldn't avoid looking back at the statue a few times. She felt as if it was watching her, as if it could start to move the moment she took her eyes off of it. This all made her pace a fair bit quicker, and soon enough she had broken into a full gallop away from that misrepresentation of Celestia, and consequently, out of the atrium, only to enter another hallway. This one was short, though, and as she crossed the end of it, the mare exited the building, skidding to a halt outside when she felt the ground under her hooves change from stone to dry, cold dirt.

She was outside, and she didn't like it, not one bit. The first thing she looked at was the sky, because that had been the last remarkable thing she remembered from her dream. This night sky, however, was of no vibrant blue, and did not make her want to be outside. The firmament above was completely, absolutely covered by a thick layer of dirty gray clouds, which allowed little moonlight to shine through. Her gaze was thus diverted elsewhere, but wherever she looked, the unicorn only saw different parts of the same depressing landscape. There was no green to be seen, neither grass nor trees, just gray. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but she could've sworn everything, from the dirt to what little vegetation, to the buildings that surrounded her, were all just different shades of gray. They worked well together, if the goal was to take away one's will to live.

The dreamer stood just in front of a very large cathedral, surrounded by what appeared to be a small town, judging by the old-fashioned buildings around her. By no means a village, but certainly a small settlement, the kind that was mostly inhabited by elders and where everyone knew each other. Everything was wrong, though. The buildings were all downtrodden, in varying degrees of abandon, not counting the ones that had been reduced to ruins. As she walked through the street that culminated in the cathedral, she saw that some houses also seemed to have been barricaded, not to mention some evident signs of violence here and there. Small holes on walls that could only be attributed to bullets, singed parts of the pavement and walls that she couldn't relate to anything, and at one point, she nearly tripped over a crater on the street.

There was not a soul around, and at this point, she wasn't even sure if that was such a bad thing. Maybe she didn't want to meet anyone. From the looks of the place, she couldn't surmise the people in there to be very friendly to strangers. This was eventually proven when she approached the last house on the street. When she turned around the corner, she tripped on something, and when she turned to look at that something, she saw that it was actually someone. A very dead someone with a very big hole on her head.

The sight made her squeak out loud as she desperately crawled away from the corpse, quickly rising to her hooves. Her magic reached out for the torch, once again enveloping it in a faint gray glow to hold it over the dead mare. The corpse was clad in dirty leather rags, and was clutching what had to be the rustiest hunting rifle she'd ever seen. What worried her the most, though, was the fact that it was a very fresh corpse in comparison to the ones she'd seen before.

This was worrisome, this pony had been shot from behind, and whoever had done it, had either taken very few things, or none at all, which discarded a purely material reason behind the act. Someone out there was killing ponies! And what did she have to defend herself with? A torch. The thought reminded her that she'd forgotten the lighter at the cathedral. In fact, now that she thought that she might need them, the dreamer realized the other things she'd left at the cathedral could potentially prove to be useful, if she retrieved them.

That definitely seemed like a good idea now, so she walked around the corpse, and began to head back towards that creepy building. It didn't take her long to get there, because her pace was rather hurried. She didn't have any memories of handling a firearm before, but at any rate, she could at least get that first-aid-kit she'd left behind.

She entered the cathedral at a brisk pace, and made short work of the path over to the hallway she'd come from. But when she got there, she froze on her tracks. The first torch she'd lit was gone. It hadn't been extinguished, it was gone! Someone had taken it. As she peeked down the hallway next to the sconce, she saw light at the end. She was currently holding the torch that had been in that room, so it wasn't a thing she was happy to find out about.

The dreamer had only seen dead ponies since the moment she woke, and what she'd seen outside hadn't hinted at anything good about the current state of Equestria. What was she supposed to think? Was the pony in there dangerous? Could they help her? Were they even still there? Too many questions, and yet she was already leaving her torch on the sconce to walk into the hallway.

She moved as quietly and slowly as her hooves allowed her to, bit by bit closing the distance between herself and the room she had woken up in. As she approached, she could hear… noises. Sort of gurgly, throaty, guttural noises that she didn't appreciate in the slightest. Then, a voice. Raspy and disgusting, muttering obscenities through a full mouth.

She could smell blood before reaching the end of the hallway, and the things she had heard by the time she did, made her doubt the mental health of the pony before her. The stallion, who had his back to the hallway, was hunched over one of the corpses, chewing at the innards that had spilled from its open belly like a hyena. The knife he'd used to gut the fallen fellow had been stabbed into the corpse's eye socket for safekeeping. The smell was heinous, terrible. The cannibal was filthy, covered in grime and Celestia-knows-what, as if he hadn't showered once through a lifetime of rolling around in his own waste. As he worked on eating, he muttered seemingly random curses and unstrung fragments of sentences that only reaffirmed the fact that he was not OK.

Meanwhile, the dreamer had frozen in place, legs stiff as she watched the scene before her with utter horror. Well, this certainly discarded any hopes she had of this stallion helping her; in fact, it replaced them with fears of being the dessert. She looked around, and saw that the criminal had stolen the 9mm pistol for himself, keeping it in a holster strapped to the vile-scented rags he wore underneath a makeshift armor made of strewn together pieces of metal.

Nervously, she used her telekinesis to very delicately slip the gun out of the raider's holster, floating the weapon over to herself. The shape and weight felt somewhat familiar, which was a strange sensation. She remembered being taught to aim down the iron sights on top, by holding the gun close to herself and aligning it with her eyes. Then, she removed the safety, and pulled back the slide. This ejected a live bullet, but she did it just in case. How many could she need?

The noise made the disgusting stallion jerk around to look at her, and the sight of his face made her cringe. His eyes were oddly yellowed and bloodshot; his lips were deformed, as if he'd chewed them off; the look in his eyes wasn't one of surprise, panic or fear, it encompassed only an unbridled murdering intent.

"S… Stop… Go away!" She hadn't spoken a word in… who knows how long. The mare only realized just how thirsty she was after speaking; her throat was completely dry and her voice was hoarse. She had to force the words out of it.

The raider stood up. Maybe he wasn't going to do anything. Maybe he was going to eat her while he raped and killed her at the same time.

She wouldn't ever find out, though, because he moved a little too quickly for her comfort, and she gripped her eyes shut, tilted her head elsewhere, and pulled the trigger. BANG. The sound was deafening, and it scared her. The fear, made her pull the trigger again. BANG. And again. This repeated itself as she emptied the entire clip of the gun in maybe, two seconds top.

When she looked again, the stallion was sprawled out on top of the one he'd been eating. She had fired a total of twelve shots. Four of them had actually hit her target. They'd done the job, but maybe, aiming with her eyes closed hadn't been the best of ideas. Just maybe.

The fact that she'd just killed someone worried her a bit more than her aiming, though. She was breathing quickly and nervously, feeling a strange mixture of cold and hot all over her body as adrenaline pumped through her system.

A long moment passed before she just pressed her flank against the wall, and slowly slid it down to the floor, sitting against the wall with a slump. This was bad. Very bad, too bad to be real. This couldn't be a common occurrence, could it? Equestria couldn't be in this situation… Could it? Just how much had she missed? Where had she been, between the point at which she died, and the moment she'd woken up not so long ago?

Too many questions for a mind that was not calm at the moment. What if more ponies like this showed up? What if he had friends? More questions?! No, she had to leave. The thought solidified in her mind rather quickly: She had to leave.

In a panic, the dreamer dropped her previous inhibitions, and began to take things from the dead. She would feel bad about it later, but she preferred to live for long enough to feel bad about it rather than dying before that. From one of the unicorns, she took a satchel, inside of which she put the first-aid-kit, the pistol, what ammunition she had, and even the cigarettes and lighter, because she had some extra space and why leave them? From the pony that was most definitely not a police officer, she took the Kevlar vest, and the bigger bag for carrying things that she wouldn't need quick access to. She decided to wear the vest over her bare form over putting on that leather gear, but she did take one of the other unicorns' robes with her, folded and stashed in the backpack.

When she was aptly geared up and somewhat armed, she took a deep breath and bolted.

* * *

She'd been wrong in thinking that the town would look any better from a distance. Standing upon a small hill far away from the town, she saw the decrepit shadow of what was once surely a nice community. The dreamer turned around, and took a look at what laid on the other side of the hill: A barren expanse that seemed to stretch to infinity and beyond. The view elicited a sigh from her, but despite not being terribly inspired to trudge onwards, the mare walked. She had to put more distance between herself and that horrible place, even if that meant wandering aimlessly for a while.

Surely, she would eventually come across a part of the land that was in much better conditions. Not _everything_ could be as horrible as it'd been so far, right?

… _Right_?

* * *

 **Level up!**

 **New Perk:** _Stray Memories_ (You know some things that you are not aware of knowing! When aptly triggered, your memories will resurface, possibly allowing you to rediscover skills that you didn't know you had!)


End file.
